There is no leadership challenge. This is the message we’re being told from within ALP ranks on an almost hourly basis. Further, we’re being continuously regaled by Labor ‘heavy-weights’ with pleas to colleagues to STFU about a leadership challenge.

The media – and I mean ALL of the media, from Sky to ABC to very single bloody commercial radio & television channel, newspaper outlet and online social media presence – says there is, but fails to produce one single scrap of evidence. It’s all heresay, he-said, she-said stuff, rumblings from Capital Mound and the Canberra Circle-Jerk brigade. Julie Bishop on Q and A, Monday night claiming that Rudd had offered Bill Shorten the Treasury portfolio for his support in caucus. Of course, she would say that, as the classics go, because she has a vested interest in feeding the mill.

I’m afraid it’s now down to the ridiculous stage when we see ABC pundit, Latika Bourke tweeting this piece of mill fodder. What are we supposed to read from the seating arrangements in Kim Beazley’s ambassadorial vehicle when he collects Rudd at Washington’s airport, or where-ever. Let’s see….could it be that Rudd being Rudd simply opted for the front seat, because he’s that kind of person? Did Rudd beat Beazley to the right-hand front door? Did Beazley choose the back of the vehicle in order to chat with Phillip Green, Rudd’s CoS? Did Green tug on Beazley’s sleeve & suggest a word in his shell-like lobe of some issue to do with both of their jobs as foreign affairs representatives? We’ll never know, and isn’t this the entire point of all of this speculation? We – the hugely ignorant and so inherently gullible Australian electorate, in the eyes of every media pundit going at least – haven’t a clue. Whether or not we actually want, or need that clue is irrelevant. We’re being fed multiple, baseless and indefinable clues as fast as the media can shove them down our throats.

None of this speculation, and I’ll reiterate, capitalised, emboldened and font-increased, NONE OF THIS speculation has any definable basis in fact. Does anyone seriously believe that Rudd is going to challenge? If he does and loses, it’s back-bench for him and a possible no-confidence motion from Abbott, which could trigger a constitutional review by the GG. If he challenges, and by some miracle succeeds, again, the inevitable no-confidence motion from Abbott, and the same constitutional review by GG. Either way, the risk of triggering an early election is enormous. Even the most vindictive attention-seeking personality would shy away from that path for fear of losing government, and that includes both so-called protagonists. To foster a leadership challenge places the minority government in peril. There is only one winner from that scenario, and it’s not us, the voters. Why then, is every single media outlet in this country perpetuating what reasoned thought says can only be innuendo?

I’m afraid, the longer this goes on, the more convinced I become that turmoil and rumour being stoked by media sources, which simply can NOT confirm any of their speculations, is being directed by forces external to the ALP. Specifically, the Conservative parties. Her Majesties Opposition, which has never managed to build a bridge over their river of bile & disappointment over losing out in the camel-trading post August 2010’s election result. If, as I suspect, this is conservative subterfuge, can Australia genuinely be better served by those who would stoop to such levels of intrigue and chicanery in order to achieve what they think they’ve been cheated out of?